Follow Over The Edge on Twitter

Follow Over The Edge by Email

Friday, July 31, 2009

My perception of Ireland leads to poetry, fresh greenness and people’s kindness. One of the contemporary Polish poets named Ernest Bryll once said, that Irish land is for those who are tender-hearted. Perhaps, he was absolutely right.

I came to Ireland in 2006, just after my graduation at university. I was trying to get accustomed to shivering of my voice which was breaking the soft English vowels, new landscapes and the sky bending towards me with sparkling colour grey. As my passion for literature was still strong I kept reading, writing and dreaming.

A year ago, by a pure accident, I found out about the literary organization called Over The Edge which was looking for some volunteers. The plan was to organize the Polish Poetry Evening in Galway to meet the expectations of a serious amount of Poles in that time and all those interested in exploring exciting new literatures. I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar DuMars while working over the Polish Poetry Evening. The event itself turned out to be a success and it attracted lots of different people. Significant Polish poets’ works and biographies (Czesław Miłosz, Zbigniew Herbert, Wisława Szymborska, Aleksander Wat, Halina Poświatowska, Marcin Świetlicki and others) were presented. Also some Polish volunteers, including myself, took a plunge and read out their own poems.

A couple of weeks later Michael O’Loughlin, also present at the Poetry Evening, wrote to me asking if I wanted to contribute my short piece of a poetic prose to his book: Galway, city of strangers, a collection of various literary forms created by different immigrants living in Galway. That is how I got published in Ireland.

In May and in the autumn 2008 I attended to a couple of the poetry workshops in Galway Arts Centre facilitated by Kevin Higgins. Gloomy late afternoons, often rainy and cold brought an interesting perspective of learning so much about poetry and, in fact, touching “the real poetry”. It was an amazing and wonderful opportunity to develop writing techniques in English and meet interesting people (with their individual views) and confront them of course. Participating in this kind of activity helps in gaining the necessary confidence to present any pieces of work in public. It also built up the essential writing skills and made me realize why I write, what I might like to achieve in the future. I did present a few of my poems twice: during the 2008 Westside Festival and during English classes (devoted to the immigrants’ aspect in Galway) following the kind invitation of Kevin Hynes from the NUI Galway.

Being able to use a foreign language despite its twists, tricks and thorns in a creative way has been a great challenge to me, without a doubt. I am still fighting the limits and trying to capture the enigmatic depths of the beautiful English language. Anyhow, I write poems only in English. Ireland, I will always appreciate that…

3 poems by Kinga Cybulska

Warsaw

A tram meanders slowly to the airport.I used to look through dusty blinded windowsAnd I am sighing now. The time is quoting itself.

The road diverged in Warsaw: exquisite greyness.Always the underground of existence, fame of sorrows.I am smuggling my books, ginger biscuits, my Master of Arts.Gaining the bitterness of Guinness and a bite of W B Yeats.Spitting out the sticky joke of a month salary.Over fifty years of systems disguised in glamorous ideas.I will miss stunning ugliness, crushing leaves with my heels.Sweet, cold mornings of weakness in November.

The road diverged in Warsaw. It was four o’clock in the morningIn New York and a man enjoyed espresso on his way to work.

Dreams and awakenings

Every night and every morningPossibilities crawl undefined.

I could have been this girl –Her face drifting in a puddle of a windowOn a night train to Paris.

Or with every anorexic reflectionLiving on self hatred and lettuce.

A mythological sylph in disguiseGiggling viciously outside heaven.

Limbo

Wrong was the sudden quaver in my legs,Fatigue on my lips – unlike the loquacity of yours.There were many bottlesJingling mellow and softly, breaking fantastically.Let’s liquefy our devotion.I’ll be your bloody naughtinessWhere your loneliness gaspsAnd your monotony.The small pantry where you used to bite through candiesAnd wild Angelica loved blenched almonds.Words. I am tasting dirt.

Kinga Elwira Cybulska is from Lublin, Poland. In 2006 she received her MA in Polish language and literature at Catholic University of Lublin (KUL). Her work was published in the anthology: Galway city of strangers, Edited by M. O’Loughlin. In 2008 she participated in the Polish Poetry Evening (organized by Over The Edge). She also attended a couple of Kevin Higgins's poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre. Currently she is involved in writing for the Polish internet website. The main area of interests includes: "the stream of consciousness", slightly darker sides of a human nature, angelology and various kinds of feminism. Some poems of Kinga's will feature in an anthology of poetry by immigrants to Ireland, co-edited by Eva Burke, which will be published next year by Dedalus Press.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Over The Edge presents the launch of two debut collections of poetry, Dear Beloved by Mary Hanlon & Spiddal Pier by Deirdre Kearney, both published by the Belfast based Lapwing Press, at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Thursday, August 6th from 6.30pm.

The evening will also see the Galway launch of Chora: New & Selected Poems by visiting poet Nigel McLoughlin, which has just been published by Templar Poetry and Transmorphosis & Other Short Story by Boris Belony (aka Stephen Hughes), which was recently published by Stitchy Press. And there will be a short reading by David Starkey, the Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, California who is visiting Galway.

Mary Hanlon lives in County Mayo. She is a participant in the Advanced Poetry Workshop facilitated at Galway Arts Centre by Kevin Higgins. Her poems have appeared in a variety of magazines, including West 47 online, The Cúirt Annual and Revival. ‘Thirst’, her poem inspired by Hugo Chavez, was published on the Over The Edge website this March. Dear Beloved is Mary’s first collection of poems and is published by Lapwing Press in Belfast.

Deirdre Kearney is originally from Omagh, County Tyrone, but has lived in Galway since 1983. She has been a participant in the Advanced Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre. Her poems have been published in West 47, Cúirt New Writing 2007, The Ulster Herald, Crannóg, Words on the Web, Tinteán, Australian-Irish Magazine- Treóir, Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann magazine, the Over the Edge website & Galway Exposed. She was a Featured Reader (alongside Denis O’Driscoll) at the May 2008 Over The Edge: Open Reading. Spiddal Pier is Deirdre’s first collection of poems and is also published by Lapwing Press.

Nigel McLoughlin is a prize-winning poet, editor and teacher. His work is published in journals and athologies in Ireland, the UK, USA and Australia. He has read his work at most of the major poetry festivals in Ireland and the UK. He is Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Gloucestershire. His fifth collection, Chora: New & Selected Poems, has just been published by Templar Poetry.

Stephen Hughes began his writing career by putting out the highly popular zine Boris Belony which was one of best selling zines in Ireland in the early 2000's. He has read alongside such zinester greats as Al Burian (Burn Collector Zine) and Dave Roche (On Subbing). Ross O Carroll Kelly) says, "Franz Kafka meets Flann O'Brien meets John Kennedy Toole. <em>transmorphosis & Other Short Story reads like a collection of your worst cheese nightmares and the essays that persuade primary school teachers to call in social workers. Surreal, hilarious and very, very smart – and then, just when you're settling into a vein of laughter, unexpectedly, disquietingly, sad and touching. I loved every page."

David Starkey is the poet laureate of Santa Barbara, California, and director of the creative writing program at Santa Barbara City College. Among his poetry collections are Starkey’s Book of States (Boson Books, 2007), Adventures of the Minor Poet (Artamo Press, 2007), Ways of Being Dead: New and Selected Poems (Artamo, 2006), David Starkey’s Greatest Hits (Pudding House, 2002) and Fear of Everything, winner of Palanquin Press’s Spring 2000 chapbook contest. A Few Things You Should Know about the Weasel will be published by the Canadian press Biblioasis next year

Everyone is welcome to attend. For further details 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Galway City Council.

In 2009 Over The Edge is continuing its exciting annual creative writing competition. The competition is open to both poets and fiction writers. The total prize money is €1,000. The best fiction entry will win €300. The best poetry entry will win €300. One of these will then be chosen as the overall winner and will receive an additional €400, giving the author total prize money of €700 and the title Over The Edge New Writer of The Year 2009. The 2009 Over The Edge New Writer of The Year will be a Featured Reader at a reading to be scheduled in Galway City Library in Winter 09/10.

Entries should be sent to Over The Edge, New Writer of the Year competition, 3 Carbry Road, Newcastle, Galway, Ireland with an accompanying SAE. Entries will be judged anonymously, so do not put your name on your poem(s) or story. Put your contact details on a separate sheet.

Criteria:fiction of up to three thousand words, three poems of up to forty lines, or one poem of up to one hundred lines. Multiple entries are acceptable but each must be accompanied by a fee. The fee for one entry is €10. The fee for multiple entries is €7.50 per entry e.g. two entries will cost €15, three entries €22.50 and so on. Fee payable by cheque or money order to Over The Edge. To take part you must be at least sixteen years old by September 1st 2009 and not have a book published or accepted for publication in that genre. Chapbooks excepted. Entries must not have been previously published or be currently entered in any other competition.

The closing date is Monday, August 3rd, 2009. A longlist will be announced in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009. A shortlist will be announced at the Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, August 27th. The winners will be announced at the Over The Edge reading in Galway City Library on Thursday, September 24th, 2009.

This year the competition judge is Patrick Chapman. He is a poet, fiction-writer and screenwriter. His poetry collections are Jazztown, (Raven Arts Press, 1991), The New Pornography (Salmon, 1996), Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights (Salmon, 2007) and A Shopping Mall on Mars (BlazeVOX, 2008). His fifth collection will appear from Salmon in 2010. He has also written a collection of stories, The Wow Signal (Bluechrome, 2007); Burning the Bed (2003), a multi-award-winning film starring Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen; and an audio play, Doctor Who: Fear of the Daleks (Big Finish, 2007). He lives in Dublin.

William Wall was born in Cork in 1955. His poetry collections are Mathematics & Other Poems* (Collins Press 1997), which won The Patrick Kavanagh Award and the Listowel Writers’ Week Collection Prize; and Fahrenheit Says Nothing To Me (Dublin, Dedalus Press, 2004). His novels for are Alice Falling (London, Sceptre, 2000/New York, Norton, 2000); Minding Children (Sceptre 2001); The Map of Tenderness (Sceptre, 2002); and This is the Country (Sceptre, 2005), which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

Hampshire College Halloween by Susan Millar DuMarsWearing prom pink with white gloves, I was hypnotised bymy skirt spinning.Chuck and Mike were lazing on this bench –the moon was silver.And Andy walked by, dressed as Jesus in a long white toga, hair wavylike a midnight ocean.And he was carrying this crazy cross, big as him, and it waswhite in the moonlight.And Andy said “hey” and we said “hey”, and then Chuck got upand he was walking behind Andy,matching step for step.And I said, “Watcha doin’?” and Chuck said,“Following Jesus, Dude.”And we giggled and got in line and then we were all followers of Jesus.And Jesus led.And if Jesus drank, we drank; and if Jesus danced, we danced;and if Jesus did a bong hit,we praised Jesus,and did one right after Him. And we fell around gigglingand Jesus giggled too.And He led us through the silvered night, and we were free;

and no one got nailed to anything.

'Hampshire College Halloween' appears in Susan Millar DuMars poetry collection Big Pink Umbrella (Salmon Poetry, 2008) and will also appear in the Best of Irish Poetry 2010 (Southword Editions). A Prayer for Monsignor Daly by Dave Lordan

Monsignor,I remember youThe way you strode into our classroomYour mouth full of tombstones,Your thin lips full of the grave’s punishments.Death strode in beside you with a cold windAnd our young limbs stiffenedAs we felt the corpse’s grip within ourselves.

One grey afternoonOr anotherYou asked us all for newsAnd I stuck up my handAnd told in all sincerityHow in my room at nightI saw a statue of the VirginFilling up with light.

You scowledAnd said what I had seenWas nothing but a childish dreamImpossible!Impossible!You said.

I was nine years old and full of talkAnd knowing that I had been awakeKnowing it was vision and not dreamKnowing it wasn’t lie or mistakeI told again what I had seenThe truth of light in a plastic queen.

A liar! I wasA blasted little liar’s what you saidAnd whacked a wooden rulerOff the back of my headAnd whacked again.A liar! A liar! you said.

Monsignor,I’m still here to peddle dirtYou’re ten years rotting in the groundTen years crumbling into earthI hope you found your mouldy godBut guess you’re mostly in the sod.

Imagination knows no lawVision’s way cannot be barredThe day after you struck meI pissed in the churchyard.

Dave Lordan is originally from Clonakilty in West Cork, but now lives in Dublin. His first collection of poems, The Boy In The Ring (Salmon Poetry, 2007), was shortlisted for last year's Irish Times/Poetry Now Award and won the Strong Award for best first collection by an Irish poet.Last Testament by Kevin Higgins

Whether I leave this world peacefully,surrounded by respectable nephewsand voluptuous nieces, or go roaringat four in the morning in the Prison Hospital,come what may, let no black crowsit squawking by my bed,but pin this sign above my head:“This fucker here does not repent,would do the same again and worse.”Yes, when I have gasped my final gasp,let Satan clap his hands and cry: “At last!”May I be down below, havingdinner with Tricky Dicky, sharingdirty jokes with old Al Haig;before “nice Father What’s-His-Name” realises I’m gone.

My Reduction Phalloplasty by Patrick Chapman If you can raise a human being from the graveAnd cure a leper of his withered limbs;If you can walk upon the surface of the seaAnd change mere drinking water into wine;

If you can whip a pair of haddock and some loavesInto a picnic for five thousand hungry souls;If you can put a virgin in the family wayBy whispering sweet nothings in her ear –

Possessing such a god-proportioned rodYou don’t intend to put to proper use,Appears a tad superfluous. That’s whyI let them circumcise me as a boy.

Patrick Chapman is the judge of this year’s Over The Edge New Writer of The Year competition. He is a poet, fiction-writer and screenwriter. His poetry collections are Jazztown, (Raven Arts Press, 1991), The New Pornography (Salmon, 1996), Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights (Salmon, 2007) and A Shopping Mall on Mars (BlazeVOX, 2008). His fifth collection will appear from Salmon in 2010. He has also written a collection of stories, The Wow Signal (Bluechrome, 2007); Burning the Bed (2003), a multi-award-winning film starring Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen; and an audio play, Doctor Who: Fear of the Daleks (Big Finish, 2007). He lives in Dublin.

The Holy Shrine of Knock by Miceál Kearney

a three ring circus of clowns —suffering, praying and molesting;where auld women form the mountains,cripples and foolsrot their teeth on candy flossand leave with bottles of cryptosporidium.

the earth is flatpounded down our throatsa Ford Motor Corporationproduction line

filtered and smoothly runlives reasoned outin dollar signs and oil

fractions of securitypayments laid awaymade down on beauty

the earth is flatand there is nothingto be done

only a monkeywould not believein the shape of things

and this is the reasonthis is the reasonthe reason is Alan Jude Moore was born in Dublin. Two collections of poetry, Black State Cars (2004) & Lost Republics (2008), are published by Salmon Poetry. His third collection, Strasbourg, will be published, also by Salmon, in 2010. His fiction has been twice short-listed for the Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Writing. His website is http://www.alanjudemoore.com/

The devil makes work for idle handsby Liam Duffy The houndsWere trulyAt his door.

In theAcademicAnd joyless officeHe was forced intoAn unfortunateConstitutionTook his attention,

Drivelling throughIts pages,The sacred wordsOf De Valera,He found a jobHe could do.

Exiting his officeThe fruitsOf his labourWritten on tabletsOf stone,BlasphemyWould be forbidden,

All the houndsStopped growlingAnd tiltedThere headsIn honest awe,

Curious of the forcesThat led toThe immaculateConceptionOf this idea.

Liam Duffy is from Galway but next month will be going to Finland to attend university there. His poems have appeared in The Shop, Revival and many more. He recently completed the Advance Poetry Workshop at Galway Arts Centre. Liam will be a Featured Reader at the December Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Poem by Patrick Cunningham

Jesus Christ King of the JewsI wonder has he heard the news ?Thoughts nailed up for the good of the nationSurely man’s ideas are also Gods creation.

Patrick Cunningham lives in Galway city. He has never written poetry before and is quite surprised to be included here. Nevertheless he feels strongly opposed to any infringement on freedom of expression and couldn't resist expressing himself.

Proof Reading by PJ Kelly There is a song a say’s something, as all songs doIts say’s that Freedom oh freedom is just some people talkingAnd you give us these empty streetsThe latest diet…a diet for our dictionNot allow us to run a mere metaphor over our own tonguesAre we to have more traffic lights and no pedestrians What next?Juggling blasphemy and infamy, speaking when spoken toChivalry, gate houses, horse drawn carriagesAnd ours is not to wonder why, just to do or die The monarchy of monotony What next?The contradictory patronage of painters and poetsThe prostitution of progress over the progress of prostitutionAnd capital punishment and for the innocents we lose, we loseWhat next?Are the children soon be seen again and never heardAre we to suffer our angst on Robben IslandIncarcerated for articulations apartheidThen freedom oh freedom is talking to just some people PJ Kelly lives in Salthill, Galway. He works as an engineer and is past the halfway point of life expectancy. He attended the Bish Secondary school in the nineteen eighties and then NUIG, gaining his formative education in all the hours in between and thereafter.Progress at Last by Paul CaseyOnward Christmas soldiers and deliver unto memy twenty-five thou-a-head, each disrespectful enemyOh yes my faithful ministers, please us, geeeeeez usTwenty-five and three zeeerus! It's Gaaaaaw dly bizznus!Next on the local walrus agenda ... for sureis a well deserved fifty grandly curefor coveting thy neighbour's car. A hundred Gsfor praising that false god Mammona MonneeeyAh, for Buddha's sake! Help me please!Pour Krishna's blessings down upon my knees!I've never taken the lord thy god's name in vain! Darn!Coz he's not my god anyway! The holy minister Harneee mayez well be for all her vanity. You'd never catch mehummmin GeeeeeezusMAAAREEEEandjosefff now, would ya, hmmmmm?There should be a million euro fine for that one, at least!Let's pay commission for getting homeless drunks to sprout the beast.Come on, say we can, on camera man,all make good 'aul civilian arrestsfor a changeMedieval-style. Think of the benefits ...I say we fling all the unemployed in jailafter six months of no working, nailthem with a National Politeness Campaignand reform those damn blasphemers again!Paul Casey was born in Cork in 1968. He is the founder and organiser of the weekly Ó'Bhéal poetry readings in Cork. A chapbook of his poems, It's Not All Bad, was published recently by Heaventree Press. Paul will be a Featured Reader at the March 2010 Over The Edge: Open Reading.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Over The Edge in association with Westside Arts Festival presents a reading by the Westside Library Writers and the 2009 Over The Edge Summer Open-mic at Westside Library, Seamus Quirke Road on Wednesday, July 22nd from 6.30pm.

The Westside Library Writers, who recently participated in a series of workshops facilitated by Kevin Higgins will read their work. Afterwards the annual Over The Edge Summer Open-Mic will take place. Everyone who has a poem or story to share is most welcome to take part.

The MCs for the evening will be Kevin Higgins & Susan Millar DuMars. All are welcome to attend.

Over The Edge acknowledges the financial support of the Arts Council and Galway City Council.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Rhyming Couplet, a short documentary about Galway writers and Over The Edge co-organisers, Susan Millar DuMars and Kevin Higgins, will feature in this year’s Flat Lake Festival.

Rhyming Couplet is directed by Des Kilbane and produced by Laura Cunningham and will be one of a group of short films and documentaries from Ireland and around the world shown in the Flat Lake Cinema Tent from 2pm on Saturday, August 15th.

The Poetry Chicks have had another busy year and are regular performers on the British and Irish poetry scenes. At the end of June they performed at this year's Glastonbury festival, as well as this year returning to Electric Picnic and Flatlake festival.

Pamela Brown (50% of The Poetry Chicks) is a published poet who has written comedy sketches for radio. She has had two plays produced,one of which was performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (1993). Collaborating with the Dutch photographer Jan Voster, her work has been exhibited in Holland and Ireland. She is currently a member of Artists in Creative Enterprise and was a leading facilitator for Wordflight, a prose and poetry project resulting in an anthology by young writers.

Conner Kelly is a 19-year old keyboard virtuoso and cabaretist from Derry, who regularly does support with The Poetry Chicks.His new album is due for release in 2 weeks' time.

Poets wishing to take part in the 2-Round Slam please bring alongtwo three-minute poems, preferrably memorized.

The winner of each month's Slam goes forward to the 2009 North Beach Poetry Nights' Grand Slam in December 2009. The prize for the Grand Slam winner is publication of a collection of her/his work.

Admission 5/ 3 Euro.

info: john walsh @ 593290

North Beach Poetry Nights acknowledges the financial support of The Arts Council and Galway City Council.